Prairie Mining (ASX:PDZ) has advised that the Polish Ministry of...

Prairie Mining (ASX:PDZ) has advised that the Polish Ministry of Environment has officially rejected Lubelski Wegiel BOGDANKA S.A.’s application for a Mining Concession over Prairie’s K-6-7 coal concession in Poland.

Prairie currently holds four valid Exploration Concessions and associated Usufruct Agreements, which includes K-6-7, and together these make up its Lublin Coal Project.

Under the Polish Geological and Mining Law, a clear pathway exists to progress from an Exploration Concession to a Mining Concession.

In rejecting Bodganka’s application, the MoE has stated that granting a concession for the production of black coal from a deposit for which an appraisal concession has been previously granted would be an abuse of trust and not in public interest.

The Lublin Coal Project is a large scale premium thermal and semi-soft coking coal project with a current Coal Resource Estimate of 1.6 billion tonnes across four coal exploration concessions in south eastern Poland.

A Scoping Study confirmed the potential for a high margin metallurgical and premium thermal coal operation.

The Scoping Study assumed annual operating costs at US$37 per tonne which would place the project on the lowest position on the global cost curve for coal delivered into Europe.

Lublin is located close to well established regional rail and port infrastructure with underutilised bulk cargo capacity for low transportation costs within Poland, to regional European markets by rail, and to the seaborne export market.